NEW TREASURES OF SCYTHIAN JEWELRY FROM THE NADBUZHANSHCHYNA REGION

Rare Scythian-era treasures from Western Ukraine’s Nadbuzhanshchyna region have been introduced into scientific circulation, complementing previously discovered finds. These unique archaeological artifacts, conditionally named Zubkiv-1, Zubkiv-2, and Zubkiv-3, were accidentally discovered near the village of the same name in the Sheptytskyi District of Lviv Oblast. Residents collected the artifacts from the plowed floodplain of the Bilyi Stik River, a right-bank tributary of the Western Bug. They handed them over to the Historical and Local History Museum of the Lviv Regional Council. The Zubkiv-1 treasure, found in 2018, was localized on the right-bank floodplain near a multi-layered settlement associated with the Lezhnytsia group of early Scythian culture. It consisted of five bronze nail-shaped ornaments with spheroidal heads. The newly discovered Zubkiv-2 and Zubkiv-3 treasures (2022) were found on the left-bank floodplain, less than 0,1 km apart. The Zubkiv-2 treasure includes 11 similar nail-shaped ornaments, one double-headed ornament, a fragment of a multi-coiled spiral, and four cylindrical beads made of light and dark blue glass (two of each). The Zubkiv-3 treasure consists of 10 nail-shaped ornaments similar to those from Zubkiv-2, as well as two ankle bracelets made of bronze rods with tapered ends that partially overlap. The authors empanised that many Ukrainian researchers associate such nail-shaped Scythian ornaments with earrings, while Polish scholars identify them as ear pendants. Similar artifacts with pointed ends have been found in Poland, particularly in the Tarnobrzeg Lusatian culture, where A. Gawlik classified them as the «Sokolniki» type, variant B. The ankle bracelets from the Zubkiv-3 treasure trove correspond to type Ia1 according to M. Maciejewski’s three-stage classification: unornamented, symmetrical with straight ends that partially overlap. Similar items are found in closed complexes of the Lusatian culture. The ornaments are typologically close to the spiral-shaped item from the Zubkiv-2 trove and have a broad chronological range, making them unreliable as chronological indicators. The «eyed» beads are considered Phoenician products that spread across the Mediterranean in the late 9th–8th centuries BCE and later reached various parts of Europe, including Scythia, and from there to the Left- and Right-Bank Ukraine. These «warted» ornaments are typically dated to the 5th–4th centuries BCE. This chronological marker, along with comparative-typological analysis of similar items, helps us to suggest that the Zubkiv treasures can be dated back to the 7th–4th centuries BCE, likely leaning toward the 5th–4th centuries BCE.